# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1862_S328
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

328 A Brotherly Greeting from Germany, by Fr. Brunn.

16th and 17th centuries did; one may even grant that this is right and in accordance with order, wherever the church merges into the whole of a nation and becomes a national or territorial church; but this is nevertheless not the essential or sole proper form for the external subsistence of the church; rather, the visible church is and always remains only the crowd of the called gathered around Word and Sacrament.

Of quite special significance and importance, however, I hold the emphasis placed on the doctrine of the spiritual priesthood of all Christians, as your Synod has done, and the right application of this doctrine to church constitution and government. For the latter can in no way be rightly grasped so long as the priesthood of all believers is not fully grasped and appreciated, with its rights and duties. And that it is precisely this doctrine that is still, to this day, not sufficiently understood is without doubt the cause of so much unclarity and confusion in the controversies over the preaching office, church government, and church constitution. It is precisely in this, therefore, that I see a special task of which God has deemed your Synod worthy: that it has come forward so clearly and decisively, publicly, with its testimony for the spiritual priesthood of all believers. For it is truly the highest sanctuary of the faith that is at stake here: namely, the assurance that, through faith alone, the whole Christ, with all His goods, rights, and merits, truly becomes our own possession — so completely that in the believing Christian I no longer have to regard my own self, but only the Christ who lives and is in him (Galatians 2:20). Just as surely and completely, then, as Christ is a King and Priest, just as surely am I one too, I who believe in Him and possess Him; just as surely as Christ holds all the power of the keys, just as surely do I; just as surely as no one could hinder the Lord Christ from administering all priestly business in His church, just as surely is it He alone who has all the power and authority of governance in His church, and just as surely also His Christians, in whom He lives and dwells through faith. To grasp, believe, and understand this means nothing other than rightly to grasp and understand the treasure of grace and salvation that Christ has won for us; it means rightly to grasp and understand the appropriation of Christ and His merit, the doctrine of justification, according to which Christ is so wholly one thing with us that, in every respect, His merit is my merit, His right is my right. Not fully to comprehend and value the spiritual priesthood of believers, to encroach upon it even by a hair's breadth, is therefore nothing less than to misjudge the doctrine of justification and the whole glory of faith.

Therefore it seems to me one of the most distressing signs of our time that precisely the doctrine of the spiritual priesthood of believers — which ought to be so easy and comprehensible, so sweet and glorious to childlike, simple faith — is accepted with such difficulty by most people. This is to me a sad proof of how far simple faith still lags behind all manner of theological learning